Popping in from Mildura plus a New Kit!

Well, here I am on holiday in Mildura visiting my good friend Susan of Tootypup Scraps, and we are having a ball of a time! With the exception of the Laryngitis I came down with and nagging cough...but that is clearing up and weather is also, so things are looking brighter. lol Ra is enjoying her time here too and proving to be wonderful therapy for Susan, after the loss of both her partner and then her beloved pup Tooty. And as the weather hasn't been the greatest so I've been working on a new kit which I have just added to stores....hope you enjoy it.


:: AUTUMN'S SONG ::

Listen to the gentle whisper of autumn's song as the birds, butterflies and other animals coming out to play, dancing among the mushrooms and sunflowers. Autumn is also a time of change and as nature readies herself for winter so the autumn song goes....

24 Papers
77 Elements

Personal Use Only

Available in stores NOW!

A Day of Mixed Emotions

Today is one of mixed emotions. Two years ago today I said goodbye to my baby girl, Sheba, who crossed Rainbow Bridge at around 11am after suffering two strokes, the loss of the use of her back legs, incontinence and doggy dementia in the space of two years....and then finally the onset of liver disease. It was then I had to make the hardest decision of my life - to let her go. And I still miss her.

A year later I created my very first scrap kit in her honour and it went into stores and on sale a year ago today - "Love is Four Paws". As a tribute to my baby girl I am placing this kit on sale for $1 FOR TODAY ONLY (22nd September) in all my stores.

But with today also comes some just as sad news. Most of you know Susan of Tootypup Scraps. We have been friends for eons - long before either of us started designing. Her design name comes from her puppy dog, Tootypup, who is 17 and a half years old. Sadly, on Monday Susan received the devastating news that Tooty has the advanced stages of cancer - pancreatic and the most aggressive form. And after watching Tooty struggle and the fluid build up in her back legs, which ultimately put too much pressure on her heart, Susan made the heartbreaking decision to let her go. She rang the vet this morning and tomorrow at 12.30pm Australian EST Tooty will cross Rainbow Bridge and join my Shebee there.

I am deeply saddened by this because I remember all too well the pain of not only losing them but having to make that decision. Our loyal companions do not want to leave us until we are ready to let them go, so we must make the decision and allow them to go. Shebee would not leave until I gave her the OK. And she passed quickly and peacefully, but she lives on in our hearts and our memories forever. Just as Tooty will for Susan. The pain will be excruciating at first, as I remember all too well, but it does ease. And the love of another four-legged friend always helps ease that pain, for they are themselves the best therapy known to mankind.

So today, I remember my baby Shebee and honour her memory and ask her to keep a place warm for Tooty who will join her tomorrow. RIP girls - we love you around the world and back again!

Cheers
Stina

New PTU Kit "Here Come the Newborns"

:: HERE COME THE NEWBORNS ::

There is a darkness settling over the city of Seattle and slowly making its way to Forks. Many unexplained disappearances and grisly deaths have taken place leaving authorities perplexed. But the Cullens know different. Victoria is back and she is recruiting innocent victims to become a vampire army against them. And for the first time ever the Cullens and Quiluettes join forces to fight the newborns - the most dangerous of vampires. With Jasper's knowledge and the added strength of the wolves, the Cullens and the wolves prepare for battle until Alice announces their arrival...here come the newborns.

16 Papers
86 Elements

Personal Use Only

** While this kit was intended to remain a freebie, due to the cost of an element I had to purchase to replace a previous one (due to a mixup), I decided to make it a limited freebie during the week of the release of "Eclipse". Apologies for any inconvenience. **

Available in stores NOW

Here Come the Newborns UPDATE!

LINK EXPIRED!!

This kit will be going PTU shortly, as it was a limited freebie due to the fact I spent the equivalent of what one would pay for 5 kits for the new set of fangs. LOL Stay tuned...will be in stores shortly.

Also with a few changes and a couple of extras included.

Please do not share my links but rather direct people to my blog to download. Thanks so much! *s*

IMPORTANT!! A Note about"Here Come the Newborns"

I have removed the link to this kit until further notice. Someone in their wisdom reported me to the apparent artist of the fangs in this kit as "stealing" their work, which is actually a remodelled version of another artist's work etc. Before emailing me - they confronted me in an email which they CCed to the artist as well.

Anyways, whatever the case may be, I immediately apologised and said I would remove it from my kit if they wished me to do so. I have just received a nasty email in response saying that if I didn't remove the image from my "packs" they would pass my details onto the company he designs for and they would take me to court and sue me. Despite my having said I would do just that they still threatened me.

So I have removed the kit for the time being and will hopefully find a replacement image.
Please, if you downloaded the kit, please REMOVE the DBS_Fangs01 immediately. Anyone who has created tags, stats or layouts with those fangs, please remove them.

My sincerest apologies to everyone, as I was assured it was safe to use. After this I feel like chucking it all in. Leigh from Heartfelt Perfections said it was Ali's turn a couple of months ago to be accused of pirating, her's last month and now it seems my turn. It is so disheartening when I do my best to be copyright compliant and do the right thing, and still get accused and shot down in flames. As I said to the "artist" of this piece, it was an honest mistake and his rudeness was uncalled for.

I will repost the kit as soon as I can. I am so sorry everyone. Please remove it from your collections and replace it with the new one when I have it up. Even if it is to be my last piece I will do that for you, at least.

Cheers
Stina

Now Selling @ TKO Scraps!

I am now selling at TKO Scraps

All products $1 till the end of the month!!

HURRY HURRY HURRY!!!

Why is it...?

Why is it that when you reformat and reinstall something ALWAYS has to NOT work the way it always has done??! I have been using IE8 since it was released, and of course I reinstalled it. But suddenly the right click option to "open in new tab" a new link has disappeared! And try as I might - googling and reading others' suggestions - I could NOT get it back. It was driving me insane. Had that been the only thing I could have lived with it. Though I do use the open in new tab right click option a lot.

But one of the biggest problems I had prior to this, even before I reformatted, was Gmail. I came to the conclusion it was an IE8 issue, when I discovered I could fly it fine in Chrome. For a long time I have never had any success in sending emails from the Gmail website - I had no idea why this happened, i just did. Whenever I tried to respond to an email or write an email, I'd click SEND and it would then tell me "You are sending an email without any body or text. Are you sure you wish to continue?" HELLO!! I just spent half an hour typing an email and it was staring me in the face - I could see! But it would say there was no body or text. And when I sent anyway, the email would always go through blank. I never had any idea why it would do this. Then I opened it in Chrome one day and it worked perfectly. So I concluded it was IE8. THAT was not my only issue either. Recently, I couldn't access the Spam or Trash links in Gmail, so therefore I couldn't empty either of them. Gmail has a drop down link titled "4 More" which you click on and it drops down to reveal Spam, Trash and a couple of other links. When I clicked on "4 More" it would do nothing and my status bar would then say there was an error. Yeah...like it wouldn't work! That drove me insane!

So when I found I had suddenly lost my right click link option to "open in a new tab" today after reformatting and reinstalling I decided I was going back to IE7 and see how that behaved. Well, I'm happy to say it all works fine. I have my right click option to "open in new tab" again, plus I can also access the Spam and Trash folders in Gmail and even better - my emails are not sending blank from Gmail!! So as much as I liked IE8, there are a few bugs that didn't like me or gmail or whatever else it decided to take a disliking to. I have to say, I miss the Favourites Bar though. I used that all the time. Had all my regular favourites stored there and with one click I could go to the site. Now I have to open up the favourites folder and search through tons of links for what I want which is a pain. lol But I guess it is a small price to pay to have everything else working again.

But again, I have to ask? Why do things never go back to the way they were after a reformat and reinstallation? GRRRRRR.

OK, that's my venting done for the day....lol

Cheers
Stina

Reformatting....AARGHH!!

Well Photoshop is not my friend at the best of times, and tonight it threw a mega hissy fit whilst running an action. It wouldn't let me save it an completely shut me out and wouldn't even let me close the program. Interestingly, albeit frustratingly also, this only happened with this particular action.

Anyways, my computer is long overdue for a reformat and it has been whining at me for some time under the strain...lol So I decided to reformat and see if that makes any difference. Goodness knows the memory of my graphics card isn't as much as I really need it to be so that is on my "Wish List" for the near future. Photoshop users will know how much of a memory hog it is, so more memory will be a good thing.

I think what peeved me even more was that I was in the middle of working on another kit which probably would have been about complete by now if I had not run into this "small" problem. So that is on hold for the moment while my puter goes through the motions of reinstalling all things important. Thank goodness for my laptop in the meantime. LOL But all my designing stuff is on my main puter and I'm still in the process of reinstalling everything at the moment - setting up sharing over the network hasn't been a priority at the moment. Especially considering it is now 4am in the morning and I've had to run the reformat twice because I had problems with the chipset installations for the motherboard. And me being me HAS to do it now, because I want to get my mail set up so it can download the multitudes that generally flood my inbox and is best doing so in my ISP's off peak time so I don't go over bandwidth quota. LOL Priorities.....lol

So don't worry if I'm a tad quiet....now you know where I am. Not far....just drowning in reintstallations. LOL Plus as PSP is my main graphics program, it is also the last graphics program I install so it overrides all the others previously installed. And I'll get this new kit finished yet. lol And I hope to have another freebie for you all again soon. Still...a couple of blog trains take off next week awash with freebies, and I have mine ready to go. *g*

Anyways...best finish off my reinstallations for the night so I can get SOME sleep.

Cheers
Stina

Thank You All!

Just a note of thanks to my friends and fans out there for all your wonderful comments on my new blog. It was a big move but it's done now. Still have to fine tune some of the coding issues but here I am!! And after 18 hours straight working on this yesterday I had some much-needed sleep and ready to get back to designing! So keep your eyes peeled for more to come!

Thank you everyone.

Cheers

Stina

Madame Butterfly Freebie Link Fixed

Mediafire has been doing all sorts of strange things since they upgraded their system. I find that it renames files when I upload them together or soon after uploading one - it renames the files to the first one uploaded. That's what happened here. I uploaded a file and it renamed itself to the Madame Butterfly freebie and replaced its password with the one I put in for other file. Very frustrating.

Anyways, the problem has been fixed. I had to reupload the file.

Just click the preview to download.

Password: butterfly

Spotlight Designer @ Twilight Scraps!

I keep forgetting to post this....lol

I'm the Spotlight Designer at Twilight Scraps!
For the next TWO WEEKS get 50% off my products!!

Available 1st till 15th Feb!

(yup, that's me...after a new hairdo...lol)

A Special Day (22nd September 2009)

Today is a very special day for me, yet one filled with mixed emotions. Today a year ago we said goodbye to our furbaby, Sheba, of 10 years, and it was a very sad and emotional time for us. I didn't think I could get over it and it is still a little painful. But she gave us many many happy years of wonderful memories that will live on forever.

So it was with this special day in mind that I was playing around with some scripts and things that I created a very special tribute, surprising many of my friends and fans. Yes, I have taken the step into the designing world and created my very first scrap kit, which I have called "Love is Four Paws". And while I was just toying and learning how things work that I decided to make this a tribute to Sheba's memory.

So this is a very special kit for me for a couple of reasons - being my very FIRST kit and a tribute to Sheba who crossed Rainbow Bridge on 22nd September 2008. I have released it today, on her first anniversary as a special tribute to her for all the love she gave me, and to us. I will never forget her. RIP Sheba - always in our thoughts, forever in our hearts.

I hope you enjoy this kit, as this being my first one ever. There are many items for your scrapping/tagging needs to suit any furbaby, but particularly dogs. Animals, especially dogs, hold a special place in my heart so don't be surprised if more pop up along the way. LOL Also included are a couple of tubed images of Sheba which have my copyright over them. They are not stand-alone but are in a cluster of sorts as a tribute.

Which brings me to some exciting news....I am now officially selling in Twilight Scraps and for the next TWO DAYS ONLY you can purchase this kit for just $2!! It is my way of celebrating Sheba's memory. After that it will return to its regular price.

So be quick!!

**Clicking the image above will take you straight to the product page**

And don't forget...I would love to see what you make with my designs. *g*

designed.by.stina@gmail.com

New Blog - Cullenary Delights!

Ok well here it is - my new blog! Of course totally Twilight related, but who cares? And that's enough out of you Miss Sam I Am!! LOL

This is something I have been toying with for a while now - whether to change my design name and all. Thing is I never really liked the name of my other blog but I already had Designed by Stina for my tutorials that I was at a loss as to what to come up with.

I came up with the name "Cullenary Delights" a while ago and had been tossing the idea about but wasn't 100% sure. I mean changing your design name is a big thing because everyone knows you as one name and by changing it things tend to get a tad confusing. So in the end I decided to keep my design name (of sorts) but drop the ED and just become Designs by Stina. "Cullenary Delights" is tied in as my blog name, with Designs by Stina as the subname, if that makes any sense. lol This way, my old fans will still know me...and hopefully where to find me. *s*

I hope you like what I've done. Has taken me 12 hours of non-stop slog. This new coding for this template is a near-nightmare!! But it looks so much better. lol But boy, do I have a headache now. LOL Now for the task of transferring all my posts for the last 6 months onto this one.

And don't forget to follow me!!! lol